Video Card

Case

Power Supply

Details

Date Published

April 21, 2018

CPU Clock Rate

3.6 GHz

GPU Core Clock Rate

1.257 GHz

GPU Effective Memory Clock Rate

8.4 GHz

Description

So this desktop is for a friend of mine. Sadly he had his last pc's mobo die so he was looking for an upgrade.
We went through about 4-5 different designs. Which came down to two. One was pretty much what he has now, minus the CableMod parts and the other was with the new Ryzen 2600x and a 1060. That build also had and EK 240G. We were going to go for that one, but most of the parts were not in stock or had to be ordered from another state. So we went with the full blue AMD build. The budget was also $1800 AUD.

At its current state we have not finished the software side as I ran out of time on the build, so more photos and details will be added later. We did get it working and had it running of his old build hard drives. The only new one was the 240g m.2 drive, which will later on become his new OS drive.

Update 1:
So the system has been moved to the M.2 and he could not be happier. His desktop has gone from 2-5 minute boot times to almost instant boots. On top of that he loves how fast all his games are loading. We have had not issues with drivers. The only issue is the clock speed on the ram, which I understand is an issue with most 1st gen Ryzen's, I will be looking into moving the clock speed up in the near future.

Part Reviews

CPU Cooler

Another item in this build that I was shocked with how cheap it was. Compared to Corsair and NZXT coolers for example, this thing is dirt cheap while retaining RGB lighting and easily adjustable tubes. I am still testing the cooling on the 1600x and will update this soon.

Video Card

Great performance and one of the sexiest cards for a blue design. The only thing that could potentially be an issue is the size of the card. It is very wide, it will cover 2.25 slots on the back of the case and also stick above them in the direction of the side panel. So as much as I want other to try this card, I highly recommend checking the case you are wanting prior.

Case

NZXT had continued with their great cable management and modular design with the NZXT S340 Elite. It was simple and easy to do all the cables in the PC from top to bottom. The only criticism I can give is that the side facing 2.5" mount does not have much room for cables. Ones that bend easily and have a somewhat compact connector are fine, but any older designs may have issues. But there are 2 other 2.5" bays which stop that from being an issue for most people.

Power Supply

A great PSU, I have not had any issues with the device thus far. However I did end up using almost all the cable slots. So if you are looking to do SLI/Older Crossfire or use most of the HDD bays then I would recommend to use another PSU.